Shooting in San Francisco's Mission district stops BART, locks down school

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A 19-year-old man was shot at the BART Plaza at 24th and Mission streets on Wednesday, forcing police to temporarily shut down the BART station. (Courtesy photo)

A 19-year-old man was shot at the BART Plaza at 24th and Mission streets on Wednesday, forcing police to temporarily shut down the BART station. (Courtesy photo)

A brazen midday shooting on a bustling Mission district street corner led authorities to halt BART trains and lock down a nearby school Wednesday.

Just before noon, a 19-year-old man was shot in the hip on the BART Plaza at 24th and Mission streets, police said.

The victim walked about a block before collapsing. His injuries were reportedly not life-threatening.

Witnesses told San Francisco police that two suspects ran into the BART station. BART briefly stopped trains to search for them.

Witnesses said one of the suspects was Hispanic and the other black, and one of the two was wearing a white hat and blue jacket. Police notified the San Francisco Unified School District, which locked down Buena Vista Horace Mann, a K-8 public school one block over from the crime scene.

“The school went into lockdown as a precautionary measure at 12:30 or so,” said district spokeswoman Heidi Anderson. She said that police gave school officials the all-clear a half-hour later.

Witness Zuhair Seedahmed told The San Francisco Examiner the victim was in the midst of a crowd of people, and the shooting was apparently unprovoked.

“There was a lot of people and he just walked through them,” he said of the shooter. “He just came up to the guy, then he shot him right away.”

Seedahmed said he saw the victim run across Mission Street.

“He was bleeding pretty bad,” he said.

One always has to be careful in the Mission, Seedahmed said, but he could not recall another daylight shooting on a crowded corner.

“That’s sort of weird,” he said.

Wednesday’s shooting marks the latest episode of violence in the Mission, which saw three homicides committed during a one-week period. Police spokesman Albie Esparza said it’s not known if the latest incident is gang-related.